White House Launches Website for Online Petitions

WASHINGTON -- The White House is making it easier for people to press the federal government to act. It is bringing that age-old constitutional
right to petition one's government into the digital age with a new webpage, "We the People," where members of the public will be able to create and
sign petitions seeking the government's action on a range of issues.

An official response is guaranteed for any petition that draws enough signatures -- 5,000 names within 30 days -- after it is reviewed by staff
and the appropriate policy experts within the administration, according to White House officials who previewed the details for The Associated
Press.

Well folks, there you have it. I can't wait to see what kind of crazy stuff makes, or gets removed, from this website.

This will be cool, not only for us conspiricy minded folks, but for the administration to get a feel for what's really bothering the people.

yeah this is bad idea lol. Easy way for the government to pass laws off as if we wanted them, restricting our freedom even more. I have heard about
the government creating massive amounts of fake online profiles could this be the reason

My take on this is that it's some lame attempt on the part of government to try to defuse revolutionary fervor. The misguided hope that if they
pretend to listen to our "petition for redress of grievances" we'll think they actually care and will do something.

I suppose if you're one of those people who actually believed the propaganda you heard in 5th-grade Civics class (that's what it was called in the
'60s; sorry, I don't know what that class is called now), then you might think that it's actually an attempt to make government responsive to your
needs and desires. Good luck on that, citizen....

Let me save you all alot of time and aggravation. This administration (as well as its predecessor) regularly launches new 'feel good' access
progams to involve The People. I've been working with various entities in DC for over 4yrs across two administrations. We have dealt with these
programs as they poppped-up from the White House, HUD, Treasury and others. We have submitted vetted materials through these various
portals/programs, have had secretary-level meetings in some cases and had a program of ours rank #1 by over a factor of 2 based upon public voting and
input. Where did it go? Nowhere.

We've learned that they truly don't give a crap about what any of us think, say or feel. They truly don't. We've had one-on-ones with 5
different Congressman from both parties. What did we learn? They don't care. Not about The People. Their handlers/benefactors most assuredly, but
not We The People. More than likely this is simply going to end up being a ploy to collect the identities of 'malcontents'.

If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and an official response will be issued. And we’ll make sure
that the petition is sent to the appropriate policy makers in the Administration.

The initial threshold to get a response from the Administration is 5,000 signatures.

So essentially what they are saying is that they'll issue a canned response. I.e. if a petition comes up "End the wars!!!", even if it gets 15,000
signatures, way more than the 5,000 required, a response would probably be something like "This administration firmly believes in peace, but we need
to finish what we started in the wars." I fail to see how this would actually accomplish anything.

We've had this in the UK for some time. If a petition gets more than 100,000 signatures it gets debated in Parliament. Nothing of great significance
has happened yet, but it's a handy tool for letting the Government know how people feel about issues and may have an effect on policy even if the
petition doesn't directly result in a change of law.

I thought about starting a new thread on this but after using the search option and discovering this thread, I figured I would just update it with an
interesting petition AND a conspiracy theory!

A friend of mine on Facebook posted the link and was encouraging everyone to sign. I was more than willing to do so until I got to the White House's
page and read the part that says you have to create an account to sign. Then I found myself thinking, "This could be dangerous..."

It would make it much easier to capture those opposed to spying and Big Brother if those people willingly gave you their name and location, right? We
know for a fact the Government has no interest in repealing the Patriot Act. Granted, these petitions can be started by random people but why not use
the We Are Change site instead? I am definitely NOT putting my name on the White House's petition.

Have I spent too much time on ATS? I suppose I'm just being paranoid. It's funny though that the government pretends they have any interest in
listening to the People. They stopped doing that long ago.

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